[HN Gopher] Judge rules Wyoming corner crossers did not trespass
___________________________________________________________________
Judge rules Wyoming corner crossers did not trespass
Author : bikenaga
Score : 173 points
Date : 2023-05-31 17:57 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hcn.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hcn.org)
| dools wrote:
| > The men corner-crossed in 2020 and 2021 to hunt public land
| enmeshed in Eshelman's 22,045-acre ranch.
|
| What sort of a sociopathic son of a bitch do you have to be to
| tie up so many resources on such a minor transgression? That dude
| eats babies for sure.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Uck eah! his s uch a ig in or ublic ands!
| bikenaga wrote:
| :-) My bad! I'd fix it if there were a way.
| dang wrote:
| Fixed now!
|
| (Submitted title was "Udge rules Wyoming corner crossers did
| not trespass")
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| Excellent outcome.
|
| Previous discussion:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33860346
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _6M Acres of Public Land in the US West Are Corner-Locked_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34143365 - Dec 2022 (183
| comments)
|
| _The Wyoming corner crossing case_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33860346 - Dec 2022 (74
| comments)
|
| _A navigation app that illuminates public land within
| privately held property_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33753467 - Nov 2022 (181
| comments)
| mcv wrote:
| It's bizarre to me that this is even an issue at all. How does
| the landowner justify millions of damage even if they had walked
| on his land? Is there no right to cross private property if
| that's the only reasonable way to reach public land? There should
| be.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It's ridiculous that this case got anywhere within the court
| system. Imagine a grown man angry that some other grown man
| stepped _over_ a square-foot corner of his precious 22,045
| acres of dirt to get onto some other area of dirt. This is like
| my brother and I arguing over who 's hand was on who's side of
| the back seat of the car when we were pre-schoolers. How much
| time, money, and energy was wasted on this clowning?
| RandallBrown wrote:
| If the only way to access that land is through the corners of
| that guys property, by preventing access that way he
| essentially gets that land for his own personal use.
| kelnos wrote:
| I get that, but it's still pretty disgusting. As if tens of
| thousands of acres of land and millions of dollars in the
| bank isn't enough for someone. These people are a stain on
| humanity.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Wealthy people have no idea what "enough" means. This guy
| could use his time to explore a different acre of _his
| own land_ every day for 50 years and still not visit his
| entire property. Instead he 's going to court to try to
| block people from accessing land that isn't even his.
| crtified wrote:
| While most cases don't make international news, the sad
| reality is that ostensibly petty or trivial real estate
| arguments consume vast resources globally - this case is the
| figurative drop in the ocean. And really, they always have -
| this isn't new, any more than your quoted bickering-children
| example is.
|
| The reason is the same reason that 'real estate' earned the
| key descriptor 'real'. People will literally go to war over
| two things: people, and land (*some would add religion, but
| I'd suggest that's generally been a convenient excuse under
| which lay the truly motivating people+land end goals).
| sethev wrote:
| It's a (selfish) issue for the landowner because previously
| they could treat this public land as if it was theirs
| effectively, since other people don't have access to it. This
| ruling doesn't change that for public land that doesn't share
| at least a corner with private property.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It shouldn't even be possible to capture an area of public
| land for yourself by buying all the land around it,
| effectively land-locking it from the public. How stupid of
| the government to even let the scenario happen in the first
| place. I like the idea of another commenter: The government
| should just take narrow easements around the borders of all
| public lands, _and_ paths through private lands for the cases
| where some area of public land is surrounded like this.
| drewmol wrote:
| An offer of compensatory acreage adjacent to and redraw of
| property lines may entice support.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Outside the US, there are even many jurisdictions which make
| this question of easements moot, by having general rights to
| roam.
| lolc wrote:
| That was a surprising lesson for me when I was roaming
| California and asked a local how to reach that hill: "You
| can't, it's private." Hadn't encountered the idea before that
| one could restrict access to forest like that.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This was one of the things I was enamored with when I visited
| New Zealand. It was my first experience with that.
| fragmede wrote:
| The Swedish call it Allemansratten and it's lovely.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| Unfortunately in New Zealand we have no right to roam,
| beyond riverbeds and beaches. Access is negotiated, often
| by the Department of Conservation or a regional council,
| sometimes in exchange for paying a share in maintenance of
| an access road.
|
| This often means you might be able to walk through farmers
| paddocks, to access a track, but little guarantee that you
| could do this in the future.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| Every man deserves his day in court.
| dylan604 wrote:
| And the first step of that court process should be a judge
| deciding if a case has merit or not.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Aka "summary judgement", where the judge assumes everything
| side A alleges is true, and evaluates if there is even a
| justiciable claim. If there isn't, the judge grants summary
| judgement to side B.
|
| The thing is, law is complex, overlapping, and often
| unintuitive. Especially property law. Although a non lawyer
| might think a claim is stupid or ridiculous, the law itself
| might not see it that way.
|
| This is one of those times. I believe we have the right
| outcome here and it's a great day, but usually when non
| lawyers think a case is legally obvious, they are wrong.
|
| The case may be morally obvious--as here--but law and
| morality are different things. And just because the law
| ought to be obvious--again, as here--doesn't mean it is
| obvious.
| diogocp wrote:
| That's what happened:
|
| > Chief U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl granted the
| hunters' request to dismiss most of Eshelman's lawsuit
| ckwalsh wrote:
| I'm guessing along the lines of:
|
| * Before hunters were corner cutting, the land was more
| desirable and I could have sold it for $X
|
| * With hunters now corner cutting, the land is less desirable,
| due to the hunting activity, and can only be sold for $Y
|
| * $X - $Y = $7 million
| axus wrote:
| Usually the courts will decide in favor of the public's right
| to beach access. Here's one example:
| https://news.yahoo.com/venture-capitalist-khosla-loses-calif...
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| IIUC, this is enshrined in Rhode Island's constitution, as
| mentioned here [0].
|
| [0] http://www.crmc.ri.gov/publicaccess/PublicAccess_Brochure
| .pd...
| jacobolus wrote:
| In California beaches are public property and the CA coastal
| commission (established in the 1970s) has the responsibility
| of protecting the beaches and guaranteeing access.
| https://www.coastal.ca.gov/whoweare.html
| rippercushions wrote:
| If corner crossing is not possible, the value of his private
| property increases by the value of the notionally public land
| that's effectively exclusively his now. If corner crossing _is_
| allowed, then that value is stripped away and he "loses"
| millions.
|
| Of course, this claim of damages collapses in a puff of logic
| when you point out that he never should have had exclusive
| access in the first place. Maybe he can sue the judge next?
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Maybe he can sue the judge next?
|
| AKA an appeal
| CottonMcKnight wrote:
| It's a puff of logic in either circumstance:
|
| If he's wrong, he never had exclusive rights to public land
| in the first place and it was not his to lose.
|
| If he's right, he obviously did not suffer the loss of the
| value of that property.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The sheer rapaciousness of these multi-hundred millionaires is
| just disgusting. I'm glad to see that public opinion is largely
| starting to turn against these billionaire types as "geniuses" to
| boils on the ass of humanity.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| This is their worst nightmare. Some disgusting poors milling
| about their hundreds (thousands?) of acres
| x3874 wrote:
| [flagged]
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Similar issue with "The Narrows" in TX, but instead
| relating to the riverbed:
| https://texasriverbum.com/index.php/2014/09/17/hike-and-
| hass...
| lazide wrote:
| The most bizarre thing about this situation is that IT WAS ALWAYS
| ILLEGAL FOR THE LANDOWNER TO BLOCK LAND THIS WAY. Since 1885.
|
| [https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=23&page=322]
| arcticbull wrote:
| Yes, well, if we relied on settled and trivially obvious law to
| decide these things, what would Vinod Khosla do in his spare
| time?
|
| Besides of course chasing beachgoers down the waterfront with
| his rake. [1, 2]
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/01/vinod-
| kh...
|
| [2]
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/08/califor...
| The_Schwartz wrote:
| [flagged]
| The_Schwartz wrote:
| Eh maybe I'm being harsh calling him that. It's been a long
| day. I don't think I'm wrong though
| solarmist wrote:
| That's fine. HN just isn't the place for that.
| angry_octet wrote:
| You're not wrong;
|
| https://wyofile.com/corner-crossing-landowner-gave-
| millions-...
| [deleted]
| Eduard wrote:
| For those out of the loop just as I was:
|
| https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-initiatives/corner-crossi...
|
| > What they had done was place an A-frame ladder across an
| intersection of property boundaries, the location where four
| parcels of land meet at a point. They climbed up one side of the
| ladder from public land, and down the other side of the ladder,
| stepping kitty-corner onto a different parcel of public land. But
| in doing so, their bodies also crossed through the airspace of
| the other two parcels meeting at that point, which were private.
| Their trial, set for mid-April, will decide if they trespassed
| when they passed through that private airspace.
|
| This sounds so constructed, as if they wanted to provoke the
| precedent.
| hadlock wrote:
| Weirdly I think this is not constructed, hunters are moderately
| heavy users of public lands and land rights are pretty
| important to that group. I believe they are entitled to enter
| public land and at the same time respect land right usage of
| private land owners, and the ladder is a discreet and harmless
| way to access public lands. The argument that they intersected
| the airspace of private land momentarily, with no damages,
| likely falls under accidental or unintentional violation.
|
| That said, the goal is to access additional public land. I
| struggle to see how the supreme court will fall on the side of
| private landowners and might even punitively add that vehicular
| access to private land might be allowed in the future. Right
| now it's only "on foot". This ruling has an enormous body of
| evidence and research behind it, this isn't a small issue for a
| large number of people; they just don't overlap much with the
| HN community very much.
| michaelhoffman wrote:
| How else are they supposed to cross from one corner to the
| other?
| yaur wrote:
| They are supposed to pay the rancher a trespass fee to be
| allowed access to the public land through their property or
| hire a guide that has a commercial agreement with rancher
| that includes access to the public lands.
| jjulius wrote:
| Or, they could just... ask. Never a guarantee, but still an
| option until this issue can be more clearly defined from a
| legal standpoint.
|
| >"Last year, a couple of dads from Missoula and their sons
| showed up and asked me if they could hunt here. I told them
| to give me 15 minutes and I'd take them out with me. We got
| some really nice mule deer bucks for their sons, and they
| helped me work cattle the next day. We got some antelope
| for the dads the day after. So we had fun. One of them even
| bought beef from me this year."
|
| https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-initiatives/corner-
| crossi...
| idopmstuff wrote:
| Just step across.
| californical wrote:
| Which is also illegal, btw, due to terrible us laws around
| public land
| Eduard wrote:
| Just build a ladder high enough.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights
| labster wrote:
| I see you, and raise you _Cuius est solum, eius est usque
| ad coelum et ad inferos_
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuius_est_solum,_eius_est
| _us...
| LastTrain wrote:
| Seems as though it is not illegal, at least according to
| this ruling?
| labster wrote:
| Not according to this ruling. But still possibly illegal
| in another federal circuit.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| From reading the article, it appears that there was a fence
| (presumably intersecting sections of fence) that had to be
| overcome. Climbing the fences would be, nominally, stepping
| foot on those fenced properties. Using the ladder let them
| go over the corner boundary without actually having to step
| foot on the other two adjacent properties.
| | Public ---+--- Public |
|
| The fences belong to the private properties (if my
| understanding is correct) and the ladder lets them
| technically remain only, with regard to "setting foot", on
| the public properties.
| hadlock wrote:
| The ruling very intentionally says "on foot", which limits it
| to people walking across. Leaves the door open for future
| debate/interpretation about vehicular traffic. You might be
| able to design an offroad vehicle that can "step" across the
| boundary but by my (non-lawyer) reading this isn't covered by
| that.
| Eduard wrote:
| By digging a tunnel, for instance
| lolinder wrote:
| The plaintiff's complaint is so contrived that I almost wonder
| if it's _all_ a setup to get this law overturned. No judge in
| their right mind would award anything close to the damages that
| they 're asking for, and their argument in favor of the damages
| is the perfect illustration for how bad the law is:
|
| > Eshelman asserts that when the men corner-crossed -- stepping
| from one piece of public land to another at a four-corner
| intersection with his ranch -- they damaged him by up to $7.75
| million.
|
| > That's based on a 25% devaluation of the Elk Mountain Ranch,
| appraised at $31.1 million in 2017.
|
| > Rinehart would discount the ranch by 30% if corner crossing
| was declared legal, he said in an affidavit. His figure would
| raise alleged damages to a total of $9.39 million.
|
| So the argument essentially is "this law gives me de facto
| ownership of 25% more property than I actually own, and these
| guys trying to cross it somehow sets a precedent to set that
| land free". IANAL, but on the face of it that makes zero sense
| because two dudes breaking the law doesn't undo the law.
|
| However, if they're not actually trying to win, this is a
| pretty solid argument to make if you're trying to persuade a
| judge to legalize corner crossing.
|
| https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_a519...
| londons_explore wrote:
| > However, if they're not actually trying to win,
|
| Is it illegal to take a case to court with the intention to
| lose yet set precident?
| roywiggins wrote:
| That theory is even weird on its own merits! If they lost,
| and were found liable for damages, then other crossers would
| be dissuaded, and no damages occurred...
| petsfed wrote:
| Given that OnX makes its money off of facilitating access to
| recreational land, this report was surprisingly fair in
| describing land-owner concerns.
|
| I am pretty strongly for access to public land, but even I
| could appreciate the concerns re: bad apples being encouraged
| by this particular case. That is, if you already have an issue
| with people illegally accessing your land, then opening the
| door for more people to attempt to access public land by
| passing through some mathematically precise point in space does
| in fact invite people who aren't so careful to cross _near_ the
| corner. I 've seen enough braided trails and "no motorized
| vehicle" signs busted and mashed into tire tracks to believe
| that concern. And the reality is that all it takes to do
| irreparable harm is 1 bad actor, because they can do so much
| damage.
|
| All of that said, I think it's vitally important that western
| states do something to make it impossible to sue a _trespasser_
| for whatever loss of value you perceive when the public land
| you thought you locked up remains public.
|
| I can see suing a trespasser for the cost of reclaiming a
| social trail that they happened to get caught on. But I cannot
| see suing a trespasser for 25% of the value of a $31M real
| estate transaction, because it turned out that a bogus legal
| theory about "owning" land that's not actually in the deed is,
| in fact, bogus. If the landowner can make a compelling case
| that the previous owner, or the facilitating real estate
| agents, convinced the new owner of that bogus theory, then
| sure, sue _them_ for the lost "value". But not the guys who
| went out of their way to avoid causing any real (in the legal
| sense) damage.
| maxerickson wrote:
| If there's no evidence that the trespasser is substantially
| responsible for the trail, suing them is ridiculous too.
| kens wrote:
| In case anyone was wondering about the $7.75 million clamed
| damages, the claim is that allowing corner-crossing would cause
| the ranch to lose 25% of its value, and the ranch is currently
| valued at $31.1 million. Details:
| https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_a519...
|
| (I'm not justifying this claim, of course, just providing
| information in case anyone was wondering where the number came
| from.)
|
| Edit: the number came from a real estate agent acting as an
| expert witness, who said he would drop the value by 25% or 30%;
| it's not a mathematical/geometrical argument.
| bckygldstn wrote:
| With that logic it doesn't seem like the hunters are liable for
| the damages? The hunters aren't the ones deciding if corner-
| crossing is allowed.
|
| Even the court seems faultless here. It's not re-zoning their
| land, it's clarifying a law that already existed. The owner had
| an incorrect pre-ruling valuation.
|
| This case is especially crazy cause the landowners sued the
| hunters: if they hadn't sued there wouldn't have been any
| damages, maybe they should sue themselves!
| roywiggins wrote:
| And if the court found them liable for the damages, that
| would be enforcing a no-border-crossing rule, and so no
| damages actually occured on that theory! It's self-negating.
| dools wrote:
| > Attorneys for Elk Mountain Ranch owner Fred Eshelman last
| week designated real estate agent James Rinehart of Laramie as
| an expert witness in Eshelman's civil suit against the hunters
|
| Nothing more credible than a local real estate agent being paid
| to serve as an expert witness by the prosecution team of a guy
| that owns a 22,045-acre ranch! He probably had a sniper dot on
| his forehead during the testimony.
| thorncorona wrote:
| The owner, Fredric N Eshelman, and his lawyers by the way:
|
| > "Do they realize how much money my boss has ... and
| property?" Grende said.
|
| https://wyofile.com/corner-crossing-video-do-they-realize-ho...
| karaterobot wrote:
| I was wondering exactly that, thank you for elucidating.
|
| Reading into it more than I should, it seems to me like what
| the plaintiff actually believed is that if people thought they
| could corner cross, it would reduce the value of the property,
| because it would mean that more people would be emboldened to
| do it. One group of ladder-bearing hunterrs wouldn't do it
| themselves, and without the right to cross his property being
| set in precedent, many groups probably avoided doing it for
| fear of being sued. The legal gray area dissuaded them. No
| more! This is one of those times when opening the box killed
| the cat.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"allowing corner-crossing would cause the ranch to lose 25% of
| its value"
|
| Somebody should stop taking those shrooms.
| lolinder wrote:
| The horrific reason for this figure is that owning a square in
| this ridiculous checkerboard is equivalent to owning 1/4 stake
| in the squares of public land that it's adjacent to. If you own
| four black squares on the checkerboard on all sides of a single
| white square, you _also_ own the white square, because you are
| the only person who can legally pass through onto the public
| land.
|
| By citing this figure, the plaintiffs are essentially admitting
| that they are claiming de facto ownership over the public's
| land.
| hadlock wrote:
| By this logic of five squares, wouldn't that reduce the value
| by 20%
| lolinder wrote:
| This ranch apparently consists of quite a few squares in a
| complicated pattern, but even if it were just the four it
| wouldn't end up being exactly 20% because you would have to
| factor in the partial ownership of every adjacent public
| square, not just the one you surround completely.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Looking at the map in the article, it looks like it is
| pretty much a checkerboard. Ie. Half is owned, half is
| not. So you'd expect a 50% reduction (minus a couple of
| percent for edge squares which are not yet enclosed)
| lolinder wrote:
| Which article has a map of this ranch? I've been looking
| but haven't found one.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Inset on the left, about a third of the way down
|
| It's a blurry map, but seems to show this ranch (in
| yellow)
| anotherhue wrote:
| The property planning department must have been fans of Go.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| What is this claimed $7.5 million in damages by stepping over a
| corner of land about? The wooden beam from the photograph got
| scratched or something?
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I assume they're including the value of the public land that
| was 'inaccessible' (not actually inaccessible as we found out)
| as part of the ranch, which is a ridiculous notion that
| should've been summarily dismissed with prejudice so the
| plaintiff could not re-file or appeal the verdict, but this
| ruling is a good one.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Hmm, what actually happens then if you'd have a fully
| enclosed piece of public land without even any corners to
| reach it?
| quickthrowman wrote:
| It becomes landlocked and only accessible by land to the
| landowner(s) of the surrounding parcels. It is still
| accessible by air, but chartering a chopper is very
| expensive.
|
| I'm not sure what rules there are if there's a navigable
| waterway that goes into the public land through private
| land, there may be issues if you have to portage around
| obstacles on the river onto the private land. I would
| assume that if you can access the navigable waterway from
| public land, you are allowed to use it to reach the
| landlocked public land by traveling along the waterway
| through private land, but I'm not 100% sure.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Brought this up as a sibling comment in this thread, but
| "The Narrows" in Texas is almost precisely what you
| describe:
| https://texasriverbum.com/index.php/2014/09/17/hike-and-
| hass...
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this, it was an interesting read!
| macksd wrote:
| I own land in this general vicinity, and part of the
| purchase process that the title insurance company covered
| when I bought it was ensuring that not only was I really
| purchasing what I thought I was purchasing, but that access
| to the land was guaranteed: I and all the plots around me
| have easements where a quasi-government entity guarantees
| roads that connect my plot to county roads, then state
| highways, then interstate highways.
|
| I would say that if land was purchased that completely
| blocked off access to public land without such easements,
| somebody screwed up royally with regard to such easements.
| Not sure if that's what actually happened with the land in
| question?
|
| edit: actually reading an article linked within the one
| linked here: "This is a murky legal area, due in part to
| the failure of Congress to ensure access to landlocked
| federal public lands". So yeah, someone screwed up royally
| and it was Congress.
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| I'm surprised landowners in Wyoming own the airspace above their
| land. Normally you are only allowed to control as much airspace
| as required for the ordinary enjoyment of your property (for
| buildings and such).
| https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/2019/title-10/chapter-4...
| kjs3 wrote:
| US$7.75 million in damages for (rereads it) stepping on someones
| property? That's some next-level douchebaggery right there. It's
| a shame the lawyers involved won't get sanctioned for not telling
| their PoS client "that's not going to go over well"[1].
|
| [1] "Any damages Eshelman would claim for that alleged
| transgression would be limited to "nominal damages" and not the
| $7.75 million Eshelman had claimed in lost ranch value, the judge
| wrote."
| kens wrote:
| The claim is that allowing corner-crossing would cause the
| ranch to lose 25% of its value, and the ranch is currently
| valued at $31.1 million. Details:
| https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_a519...
|
| (I'm not justifying this claim, of course, just providing
| information in case anyone was wondering where the number came
| from.)
| giaour wrote:
| > US$7.75 million in damages for (rereads it) stepping on
| someones property?
|
| Not even stepping on private property, just crossing through
| its airspace.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| No, while the airspace and touching a pole allegations were
| just dismissed, there was also--and still is--a "trespassing
| by foot elsewhere on the property" allegation that is still
| live, and it is that allegation to which the comment about
| "nominal damages" applies. So the original $7.75 million
| claim wasn't _just_ for corner crossing.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Oh, well that makes it way more reasonable. /s :-)
|
| I guess I shouldn't be surprised. My wife does some work on
| the medical side of the Personal Injury industry and
| there's always some comedy about PI lawyers trying to juice
| the moral equivalent of a stubbed toe into a 7-figure case.
| londons_explore wrote:
| For some reason, this domain is blocked by my ISP's illegal
| content filter.
|
| So here is a mirror: https://archive.ph/vVoLH
| kortex wrote:
| Great ruling. The private/public checkerboard is pretty bizarre
| in the first place. A much more forethought approach would be to
| add a public buffer around everything (basically shrink the
| private plots by 6' or so).
| drewmol wrote:
| Yes a public access easement should suffice, similar to how
| beaches are defied in some areas, waterways usually are. But
| how big is reasonable? Is it for vehicle access and/or larger
| equipment or only human sized objects?
| cyberax wrote:
| The keywords are "reasonable accommodation". E.g. in California
| if you have a property near a beach that completely blocks
| access, you have to provide a reasonable way to it.
|
| And there's no need to shrink all the plots if there's a
| reasonable way already present.
| m463 wrote:
| > basically shrink the private plots by 6' or so
|
| Might make sense where land is amazingly spacious (like wyoming
| in this case), but I wonder how that would work in other
| locales, say row houses, or manhattan or california lots which
| are measured in square feet...
| PLenz wrote:
| New York has a law to cover exactly this - the landlord has
| to provide acess through the building. This (and other zoning
| shenanigans) is why so many buildings in NYC have public
| atriums or plazas attached. Of course many of those are also
| conveniently locked all the time because the landlords
| "forget" that they're public space.
| jacobolus wrote:
| If you have 2 row houses touching corner-to-corner and the
| other two corners are both public land with one side
| otherwise inaccessible, something is going pretty wrong.
| [deleted]
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Shrink them by 3m or 10%, whichever is greater.
| labster wrote:
| The checkerboard makes sense in the 19th century context.
| Railroads were funded by land speculators, but the government
| doesn't want to give them all the best land. Since
| public/private is a binary distinction, they halftoned the
| land, sharing the profits and producing the legal gray area we
| see today.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| It would have been interesting if the west was divided into
| hexagons which tessellate perfectly and don't have this
| particular problem.
|
| I am curious with the technology available at the time, how
| much either method would have increased the surveying time,
| accuracy, and other generally important parameters?
| dmurray wrote:
| It's not immediately obvious to me how you colour 50% of
| hexagons equally dispersed on an infinite grid without
| cutting some areas off, can you provide a picture?
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| Well shoot...yes, that part fails.
|
| Perhaps hexagons cut in half (causing 6-corner
| intersections) or the isosceles trapezoid pattern below
| would work.
|
| https://robertlovespi.net/2020/06/03/tessellation-of-
| isoscel...
|
| Partly it'd be cool to have it look like Settlers of Catan.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| Yeah. There should be implied easements around private land
| that borders public land.
|
| You can do what you want as long as you do block passage
| between adjacent, or event reasonable nearby, public land.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Are we going to start seeing rounded corners on parcels now?
| dylan604 wrote:
| They will need to update the plat maps to use padding instead
| of just using margins. maybe start using box-sizing:content-box
| rather than border-box too? but, border-radius could be
| effective as well.
| connicpu wrote:
| It probably should have been that way to begin with if you
| didn't buy either of the parcels that connect the two corner
| parcels
| IvyMike wrote:
| I would be a terrible rich person, since I wouldn't care one whit
| about someone crossing "my airspace". Hell, I'd donate an acre to
| to the state at the corner just to let people cross. Fred
| Eshelman has a large fraction of a billion dollars at his
| disposal and has given away over $100 million dollars to UNC,
| just chalk this up as a donation and walk away.
| Zak wrote:
| The fact that you don't see the ability to buy land adjacent to
| public land and charge people money for access to the public
| land may be part of why you're not a rich person.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| You could make it an experience. Pay to have an ornery rancher
| catch you & lock you up in an old timey jail with the iron
| bars. Have them locked up with a cattle rustler whose brother
| rips the window off the prison wall with a horse, then escape
| to go rob a train. The possibilities are endless.
| [deleted]
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